


Stories For Children

by TheLionInMyBed



Series: Raised By Wolves [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Family Bonding, Gen, Ghost Sex, Horror, It's Unclear, Kinda?, Story within a Story, or like skeleton sex, the title is a lie, this is fairly cute for these assholes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-08 13:37:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11082678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLionInMyBed/pseuds/TheLionInMyBed
Summary: With so many skeletons in the closet, sometimes it's easier for the children of House Il'harren to invoke other ghosts. They won't share power and they can't share trust but sharing storiessurelycan't hurt.





	1. Vicious, Hungry Things

It was always warm within the great caldera that housed Zalach’ann, but the heat was rarely so smothering and oppressive. The death throes of the volcano in whose heart the city lay sometimes sent magma rumbling through the lower tunnels - it was effective pest control and they had long ago warded the city proper and built channels to divert the excess flow but it did make things unpleasant for a few days afterwards.

At a time like this Cierza would have been content to charm up a breeze and sit out in the mushroom gardens with a drink, watching the servants scuttle and revelling in her own indolence. But her cousin Gilavar was a masochist with something to prove and no sense of proportion and had insisted on their usual sparring session.

After only an hour they were both flushed and dizzy and she called an end to it. Gil would have kept going so she was forced to be the sensible one, much to her chagrin, and had wrestled him over to a water butt and held his head under until he stopped thrashing and agreed to take a break.

She did feel for him - most of the soldiers she trained with herself were too embarrassed to cross blades with a man and those few who would refused to take him seriously. She’d gone easy on him herself until he’d dislocated his own shoulder struggling out of an armlock and then, when she’d released him in horror, sunk his teeth into her wrist down to the bone. Man or not, she could respect that blind dedication to inflicting violence.

Still, sometimes it was difficult.

She usually thought of him as a sexless blur of poorly controlled anger but seeing him now, water pooling in the hollow of his collarbone, damp clothes clinging to the contours of his body made her uncomfortable and ashamed. He was athletic and tall for a man but still so slight and delicate compared to her own bulk. It wasn’t honourable to hit boys, her mother had always said, and she found herself regretting the fresh bruise rising on the plane of his cheek.

He caught her staring and frowned. “What?”

“Just admiring my handiwork,” she said lightly, gesturing at the bruise with a laugh to cover her disquiet. She clapped him on the back and threw the practice swords to a waiting servant, then together they strolled up onto the terrace that overlooked the gardens.

The air smelt damp and earthy there, of rot and growing things, and someone had had the decency to charm the temperature down to something manageable. The gardens weren’t at their best in the heat but there was still much to admire; tiny phosphorescent toadstools in half a hundred colours gave the area an unearthly glow, illuminating gorgeous lacy frills of fungus and tall, elegant mushrooms with stalks as delicate as a boy’s wrist, interspersed with great speckled behemoths as large as any surface tree. Further away, out of sight, was the euphemistically named herb garden where less attractive but more useful fungi were grown for the kitchens, for medicines and potions and for poisons.

Tehaneth and little Chanali were already on the terrace, sat at a table piled high with books. Her half-sister ignored them but her cousin looked up at their approach with clear relief. It was a heavy, musty old tome he was reading and she couldn’t blame him for wanting an excuse to be away from it. He had neglected to take his usual care over his appearance and wore a loose, simple robe, his hair pulled back from his face in a single, fraying braid, wisps falling free about his face and dancing in the breeze. She tried idly to imagine Tehaneth armed and armoured, screaming at her from across the training field and smiled at the improbability.

“You should go and get cleaned up,” he told his brother. “You know how it upsets Father to see you like that.”

“That’s the idea,” Gil said, drawing up a chair and putting his feet up on the table.

Tehaneth tutted. “You’re such a child.”

Cierza poured herself a glass of wine from the decanter on the table, disturbing a fly that had been crawling across its rim. Kadja, Tehaneth’s familiar, twitched at the sudden buzzing and scuttled down from her master’s shoulder to stalk it across the tabletop.

Gil glanced between spider and fly, looking ready to swat whichever came into reach. “We can’t all be as mature as you, little brother.”

“What’re the books?” Cierza asked quickly, thrusting a full goblet into Gil’s hand.

“Old ghost stories,” Chanali said. Steam had condensed upon the lenses she wore to aid her reading and she paused to wipe them clear. “Do you remember the Xaloc warehouse?”

Cierza grunted. She’d been trying to forget. Bad choices and the ghosts of murdered slaves had almost gotten them all killed, and Tehaneth was still sulking over the gown that had been ruined when a possessed mercenary tried to tear his throat out with her teeth.

“We thought it couldn’t hurt to do some research,” Chanali twittered on. “So we’ll be better prepared if it happens again.”

Tehaneth tucked a tendril of hair back behind his ear. “None of them have been very helpful, alas. They’re heavy on the allegory and light on practical tips.”

Her studious little sister digging for prestige, and her viper of a cousin, digging for a chance at vengeance. They were probably trying to work out how to loose the hungry dead from where they’d bound them and set them free in her chambers. Which was, upon consideration, a very good idea just as long as she did it to them first.

“Boooring,” she drawled, as obnoxiously as possible.

Chanali put on her offended face. “Some of the stories are _interesting_ , they’re just not helpf-”

“I don’t think you heard me. ‘Boooooooooring’.”

Gil sniggered.

Tehaneth smiled blandly at them. “I have one I think you’ll like. It’s about sex, death and betrayal.”

“All things I appreciate, it’s true,” she said, watching Kadja wrap her struggling fly, the buzzing gradually muted as the strands of web pulled tighter.

“Then listen,” said Tehaneth. “Once there was a wealthy merchant. She ran a prospering business, she owned a well-appointed townhouse and she had a fine, clever daughter to take on her trade when she was gone.

“She had a husband too. A handsome young man with hair as white as bone and eyes as red as blood. They were newly wed and the merchant was well content with her lot.

“But there’s no story to be found in prosperity and a happy marriage. No, stories are vicious, hungry things, built with the bones of dead men, stitched together with their sinews. And so the merchant’s love sickened and died and the spots of blood on the sheets stared up at her like accusing eyes.

“She grieved for a long time, longer than her friends and household felt was seemly, and her daughter had to take on much of the running of their business. Eventually, though, the merchant began to recover from her grief and came back into the world, taking up the threads of her life once more. Would that it had ended there but the dead never truly leave us.

“One night, standing upon her balcony, looking out over the dreaming city, the woman saw a young man walking along the street that ran before her house. He stopped at her gate and looked up at her, bone-pale hair falling about his shoulders, eyes the same dark red as her dead love.

“She went down and opened the gate to him and he stepped into her arms. And if his lips were cold and if his kisses tasted of stone and damp earth, she did not care.

“He was gone when the day dawned. But the night found him at her gate once more. And the next night. And the next.

“The servants wondered what had made their mistress so distracted, so uninterested in all that had given her pleasure before, in food and drink and the company of her friends. She grew thin and pale, living only for her nightly assignations. Her business faltered once again but once again her daughter stepped in, for she was by now well skilled in the managing of it.

“One night, an associate came to the merchant’s house on urgent business and a servant was sent to wake her. She found her mistress in bed with a corpse, a naked horror of red blood and white bone.

“With this, even the merchant could no longer deny that something was wrong. She went to the temple and told a priestess her ugly tale while the woman listened, unsmiling, unblinking. And when she was done, the priestess asked for red gold, red incense and red blood. The merchant provided all three.

“The priestess burned the incense and while it smoked she used the blood to draw all about the merchant’s house, weaving powerful magic into a ward that the revenant could not breach. The gold she kept for the temple coffers.

“The priestess’ spell kept the merchant’s love from entering the house but every night he came to the gate and looked up at her balcony. She could not sleep for the knowledge that he waited for her and, though she did not look out at him, she could still feel the accusation of his eyes.

“She held out for weeks. Months. But not forever. Finally, it became too much to resist. Finally, she went downstairs and unlocked the gate. Finally, she wiped away the blood and spells that had kept them apart.

“The next morning, the servants found her cold and still, body still entwined with her lover’s.

“And so the merchant died but she died happy, which is more than many get. Her daughter took over her business and by all accounts ran it well, becoming even more prosperous than her mother had been, for she had many clever ideas she had been waiting to implement. She never married or took a lover though and perhaps that was good sense.

“Let us end with the priestess, in her temple, counting out two bags of gold.”

Cierza pulled a face. “That wasn’t very sexy. And you said there’d be betrayal.”

Tehaneth smiled serenely. “So I did.”

A threat, no doubt. She looked to her sister, who was the poorer liar of the two but Chanali had turned back to her book. Let them scheme; together or apart she didn’t fear them.

“Is that what Aunt Zathri is? Who did she come back for?” They all looked up at the voice to find their bastard cousin Khazri staring at them from the garden stairs. The boy’s eyes were wide and solemn and Cierza wondered at how quietly he must have moved that none of them had noticed his approach.

He looked startled, like he hadn’t intended to speak, and Cierza wished he hadn’t. She shivered, despite the heat, feeling sweat beading on the back of her neck - Tehaneth’s nebulous revenge was enough to make her antsy, no need to raise the spectre of their aunt.

“She’s something else,” Gil said softly - they always spoke softly of Zathri. “It’s better not to dwell.”

The boy fidgeted nervously, opened his mouth and closed it again, making no move to approach or to leave until Cierza finally took pity.“Sit down, cousin. It’s someone else’s turn to tell a story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may or may not recognise the story Tehaneth tells - it's a take on Botan Dōrō, the Peony Lantern, one of the most famous Japanese ghost stories.


	2. We All Know Where This Ends

“I have one,” said Gilavar. He beckoned Khazri over to the chair beside his and set a glass before him. “Father used to tell it.” Khazri wrinkled his nose at the wine but took up the goblet anyway.

“Then by all means,” Cierza said, putting her feet up on the table. Tehaneth rested his chin upon his folded hands, his eyes cat-sleepy. Chanali had closed her books and put aside her quill.

“Long ago in Zalach’ann there lived a woman. She was tall and strong with large estates, above and below, vaults of gold and gems, fine servants and finer horses. One would think this woman fortunate but for one thing; her eyes were an unpleasant shade of violet so unsettling that men and boys would not dare to meet her gaze and avoided her company.

“One of her neighbours had two fine sons; beautiful, pious, well-spoken and in possession of all other qualities a man should have.”

“I don’t remember this one,” said Tehaneth. “But I can already see where it’s going. Do they both die horribly or only the younger?”

“They also didn’t interrupt when their elders were imparting moral lessons,” snapped Gilavar in a credible impression of his father. “Now our lady of the violet eyes desired one of these boys to wed, leaving the choice of which to their mother. Neither wished for the match and both argued passionately as to their own unsuitability for, her ugly eyes aside, the woman had been married six times before and no one knew what had become of those men.”

“Did they check the cellar?” Cierza asked.

“Do you want to tell this? No? Then bite your tongue. The woman threw a great banquet, inviting her neighbour and her sons, and the fineness of her house, the richness of her food, the civility of her manners convinced the boys that perhaps, in the right light, her eyes weren’t so unpleasant after all. Before the table had even been cleared, the youngest had been promised to her and before the month was over they were wed.

“Life was comfortable for almost a year until the woman told her husband that she had business with the world above and would be gone a month. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘are the keys to every room in the house. To the cellars, to my strong boxes, to the kitchens and storerooms, to the front gates. Here is the master key to my apartments. Come and go as you will for nowhere in my house is barred to you. Except one place. The tiny cupboard behind the last row of racks in the deepest of my wine cellar. Only there is forbidden.”

“‘Because that’s where I keep the corpses of-’”

“Hush. We all know where this ends. Perhaps even the husband, though he promised to obey and the woman kissed him and climbed onto her horse and rode away.

“The young man hadn’t even know the cupboard existed until his wife forbid it. He was well bred and it wouldn’t even have occurred to him to go poking about the cellars like a servant. So why then had his wife told him of it? What could be in there that was forbidden?

“He spent the first week visiting his mother and other relatives, who he had seen little of since his marriage. All were impressed by his health and good cheer but always the door in the cellar drew his thoughts like a missing tooth draws the tongue.

“The second week he went out into the city with friends to visit plays and galleries. His friends fussed over his jewels and fine clothes but every evening upon returning to his wife’s house he stripped them off and went down to the cellar to stand before the door. The wood was cool and smooth beneath his hand.

“The third week he stayed in the house, going from room to room, each lovelier than the last. But the tapestries and couches, wardrobes and coffers and candlesticks might as well have been dust and stone for all that they held his interest. What he wanted lay in the deepest of his wife’s wine cellars, behind the last rack behind a door to which he held the key.

“He had sworn to obey her in this but the need to know was too much to bear. He fitted the key to the lock and it turned without a sound.

“Inside was...well, we all know what he found. He allowed himself a moment to stare in horror and then he slammed the door closed, locked it and fled the cellar.

“He hid in his chambers, weeping, and it was then that he noticed the blood. By all rights it should have been dry, but it clotted upon the hem of his robe and, scrub as he might, cast all the spells he’d learnt at his father’s knee, it would not come out.

“His wife returned that evening, a week earlier than promised. They dined together, the husband filling the air with gossip and questions about her trip, all the while knowing that she must know for why else would she have returned so early?

“She asked for her keys and he had no excuse not to return him. And then she said, ‘come to my chambers tonight. My business went well and I wish to celebrate. Wear the grey silk for I do so like to see you in that colour.’ He had worn the grey silk into the cellar and it was more than dye that stained it now.”

“He should have told her the robes were stained some other way,” said Chanali, who hated it when people in stories were stupid.

“And so he did. ‘I’m sorry my love, but I spilt wine upon them; they’re quite ruined,’ he said.

“‘Wear them anyway,’ said she. ‘There’ll be more than wine staining them before I’m through.’”

“He should have found a weapon,” said Cierza, stretching out one leg to show the dagger sheathed in her boot.

“He had the knife he’d used at dinner but he’d never killed before, while she was tall and strong with a fell light burning in her eyes.”

“He should have run,” Khazri mumbled into his cup.

“He tried. But the doors were locked and she had taken back the keys.”

“There was nothing he could do,” said Tehaneth. “I remember this story now.”

“I never liked it. It never seemed fair,” Gil said. “But that’s the point. The husband climbed the stairs to his wife’s chambers with his stained robe and his useless knife to find her waiting with a smile in her strange eyes and a sword in her hand. ‘Come, husband,’ she said. ‘There should be no lies between us. Confess your sin.’

“And what else could he do? He threw himself at her feet, begging forgiveness, invoking all the Gods in his plea for mercy, vowing that he would never disobey her again. His tears would have softened stone but his wife’s heart was harder still.

“‘You couldn’t stay out of that room when it was the one thing I asked of you. Then I will ask you to return there and take your place with my other faithless loves. Why do you hesitate? Did you not just swear to never disobey me again?’

“Her grip was iron on his arm as she dragged him down the stairs and the door - behind the racks in the deepest of her cellars - gaped open wide…

“He always ended there. Our father, not the boy in the story.” Gilavar took a long drink and set the empty cup back on the table with a clatter.

“ _He_ got out,” said Tehaneth, sounding, for a moment, terribly young.

Gilavar opened his mouth and then closed it again with an audible clack of teeth. That was impressive self-restraint for him. Still, what he’d been about to say - _our sister didn’t_ \- lingered in the air and Cierza cleared her throat before the tension grew any thicker.

“I’ll tell the next one,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is both more recognisable and less creepy than the last one - it's Bluebeard without the deus ex machina. Or the beard.


End file.
